The Belt - Complete Series, page 58
It was in one of these old, abandoned sectors that the orbit hopper carrying Luca and Steph had been programmed by its original captain, Weismann, to dock. Luca studied the orbital on the ship’s main monitor as they approached, trying to divine some engineering logic from its idiosyncratic structure. Not that it mattered, since the ship knew where it was docking. It was more to satisfy her own curiosity.
She had always wanted to see the wonders of the solar system, places she had read about from a young age, the fabled bio-domes of Jezero City on Mars, the ice caves of Europa, the infamous Neo City, and especially New World One. But here was another one that had been on her list, less hallowed perhaps, but a wonder nonetheless.
Nothing like this structure could exist on Earth, as gravity would quickly deconstruct it into a ruinous pile of metal. But out here, gravity held no sway over such crazy structures. The zero-gee environment allowed for bizarre construction, since there was no up nor down. So, to the average human eye, accustomed over millennia of evolution to see beauty in symmetry and balance, its wonder lay in the incongruity of its assembly.
She had to admit, if this seemingly inconsequential transit orbital evoked so much awe in her, what must the true wonders of the solar system be like? The thrill of expectation rippled through her body and the traumas of the past day receded in her mind, replaced instead by the excitement of discovery. And with it came a new sense of determination. She would get to the New World, see all the wonders of the solar system with her own eyes, and nobody was going to stop her. For the first time in her life, Luca felt a real sense of excitement for her future.
Steph floated into the cockpit. “All secure, and still out for the count. I don’t know exactly what those darts are laced with, but it’s strong stuff.”
They had bundled the still unconscious crew into a shipping container and removed all weapons, communicators, and anything that might be used to help them escape once they regained consciousness. As for the dead Capt. Weismann, he had been strapped to a gurney in the ship’s tiny med-bay.
All this took place after they had eventually reconciled their differences over Luca being kept in the dark about her bio-engineered inception. Dr. Rayman, for her part, argued that they were not fully sure of what they were dealing with in terms of Luca’s modified DNA, and that they simply did not want to trouble her or her parents any more than was necessary. In the end, Luca could see the doctor’s point, even though she was still a little angry. But she could also see that no good would come from alienating the only friend she had. After all, Dr. Stephanie Rayman was putting herself in a great deal of danger just to protect her. So she let it go.
Steph folded herself into the seat beside Luca and looked up at the image of the orbital on the main screen.
“This place looks like a complete mess. It’s hard to know what’s what. It’s just as well the ship knows where to dock.” She flicked an anxious look at Luca. “Doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was preprogrammed by the crew, so it’s going where it was supposed to go before they got greedy.”
“Let’s hope it’s somewhere…low profile.”
“I discovered a few things about this ship while I was connected.” Luca tapped an icon to bring up a 3D schematic of the ship’s engineering.
“That it’s a rust bucket?”
Luca glanced over at Steph momentarily. “Far from it. I know it doesn’t look good from the outside, but this ship is capable of interplanetary travel. It could, in theory, get us to New World One.” She let the sentence hang in the air for a moment as Dr. Rayman digested the ramifications of this discovery.
“What I’m saying is…” Luca continued.
“I know what you’re saying, Luca. It’s just…my plan is simply to get you to the Transit Orbital, then head back to Earth.”
“I understand, Steph. But we don’t know what’s waiting for us in that place.” Luca pointed at the image on screen. “Word is out now. VanHeilding knows I’m on this ship, and I presume he also knows where we’re going.”
“Look, even if this ship could take us all the way to the outer edge of the solar system, there’s the small matter of food and water, not to mention three crew that are going to wake up pretty soon and start banging on the inside of that shipping container.” Steph jerked a thumb in the general direction of the cargo hold.
“Do we know what provisions we’ve got on board?”
Steph shook her head. “No. But somehow I doubt these guys have more than a few days of supplies.”
“Fly.” Luca called over the drone, who had clamped itself to the cockpit console. “Can you interface with the ship and get an inventory on all life-support resources?”
The drone detached itself and scuttled over to a data-port. A second or two later, one segment of the main monitor presented its findings. Luca and Steph both leaned in to read it.
“Looks to be around nine days’ water and five days of provisions for the four crew. Nowhere near enough,” Steph said with a slight shake of her head.
“We could stretch the water to thirty with rationing, and if there was just the two of us.”
“So what are you suggesting, Luca—blow the crew out the airlock?”
“No, I’m not suggesting we do that, Steph.”
They were silent for a moment before Steph spoke again, this time with a resigned sigh. “How long would it take?”
“To get to the New World?”
“Yeah.”
“Fly, can you extrapolate a time vector to New World One?”
The central 3D holo-screen flickered momentarily and was replaced with a schematic of the solar system. It zoomed out from the location of the ship, currently in Earth space, and scribed a curved line out past Mars orbit and on to the asteroid belt. As it moved, lines of data streamed down on one of the 2D monitors. The schematic finally zoomed in on the location of the great cylinder and stopped.
“Approximately forty-four days,” said Fly in a low monotone.
“Crap, that’s a month and a half.” Steph shook her head again.
The main monitor returned to displaying the camera feed of the Transit Orbital along with a stream of data indicating the ship’s velocity and approach vector. They were already passing the outer ring of navigation beacons and a good deal of ship traffic.
“Busy,” observed Luca.
“Of course. It’s the primary port for deep space. Most of Earth’s goods and people pass through here on their way out to the system.”
“Could we survive forty-four days, Steph?”
“I don’t know. We might, maybe. But you’re forgetting the small matter of the three other scumbags in the container. They would be dead. You really want that?”
Luca shook her head. “No.” She couldn’t bring herself to do that. “Steph, you must have been in some tricky situations back in the day, with Scott and Miranda and the others.”
“Too many to mention.”
“So what would you have done back then?”
“Luca, I don’t know what stories you might or might not have heard about me, but I’m not the hero type. Your father was in command—well, kind of. He would usually come up with some outlandish plan, and your mother would kick anybody’s ass who got in the way of that plan.” She looked over at Luca with a wry smile. “They were a good team. Actually, we all were, especially Cyrus. He could always find a way to engineer us out of a tight spot.” She paused for a moment. “If you ever get to the New World, you’ll get to meet him. Tell him I said hello.”
They sat there in silence for a while, watching the craft tread its way into the tangled, messy expanse of the orbital station.
“I can see how it would be easy to hide a small ship in this labyrinth,” said Luca, after they passed the outer edges of some sprawling structure.
The Johnston Transit Orbital was not one big space station. It was a tangled mess of interconnected units, some seemingly attached by nothing more than a long, thin strut to carry wiring and pipes, while others looked to be completely detached. It was like an archipelago of islands in space. Some close enough to be connected by bridges, and some yet to be connected, all clustered around a group of four or five large sectors.
Luca glanced at the 3D navigation schematic on the central holo-screen, then back at the feed on the main monitor, and pointed at an isolated structure ahead. “There. That’s where the ship is heading, that section over there.”
“Are you sure? No lights. No other ships that I can see. Looks completely abandoned.”
“Perfect drop-off location for a crew of smugglers.” Luca pointed again. “There’s a long gantry extending out to it from that other sector.”
“We should be able to get to the main transit area through that.” Steph looked over at Luca. “Okay, we better get ready. Here’s what I suggest we do. Grab some weapons, open that container with the crew, and Fly can shoot a few more of those darts into them.”
“With pleasure,” announced the drone.
“Good, that will put them out for a few more hours. Then, we take it real slow and quiet, and find our way to the main transit sector. That’s where the ship with your ticket to New World One should be.”
Luca thought about this for a moment. She would have preferred to take her chances getting to the Belt on this ship. But Steph had not intended to go any further than the orbital. So, Luca would be on her own from here.
“Unless you’ve got a better plan?” Steph was getting a little impatient with Luca’s lack of response—they were only a few minutes from docking.
“Yeah, we have a better plan, alright,” a new voice bellowed out from behind them.
Luca spun her head around to see the three crew floating into the flight deck, fully suited up and pointing plasma weapons. They must have woken up and somehow escaped from the shipping container.
“You pair of bozos. You don’t think getting out of our own containers would be the first thing we learned?”
In the corner of her eye, Luca could see that Fly had detached itself from the interface port and gathered itself up into a crouch, as if preparing to spring. She had no idea what it was planning, if anything. But its feeble weapons system was useless against the heavy EVA suits that the crew were now wearing, presumably for that very reason.
One of them noticed Fly and snapped his weapon up to fire at it.
“Whoa.” Another of the crew grabbed the muzzle of the weapon and forced it back down. “Are you fucking crazy? You’re gonna fry every circuit board in the flight deck.”
Fly seized the moment and took off, scuttling across the ceiling, disappearing into a ventilation shaft.
“Shit, it got away.”
“Doesn’t matter, it can’t do anything. Those darts can’t penetrate the suits. Leave it, it’s not important. Just tie them up. Good and tight this time.”
16
MANUAL OVERRIDE
Luca and Steph were tied up and strapped into two crew seats on the flight deck while the ship went through its docking maneuvers. But so far, none of the crew had realized Luca still wore the neural lace. She reckoned that being off-grid types, they were not familiar with the technology and didn’t realize that it was she who controlled the drone.
Yet there was not much she could do unless she activated the interface, and that required using her hands that were bound tight with her arms strapped down by the seat harness. But even if she could somehow manage to reach up to it, what could the drone do? Its weapons’ system was useless against thick EVA suits. Maybe she could get it to disable the ship, but that would mean the drone exposing itself, as it needed to use the interface on the cockpit console.
She twisted her pinned arms a little and reckoned she could get them free of the seat harness, but not while she was being watched. The best she could hope for was to wait for an opportunity, a time when they weren’t being monitored, then try and figure out what she could get the drone to do, if anything.
There was a clunk followed by the sound of the locking bolts firing. When the ship was finally secured, the new captain swiveled around in his seat and looked at Luca.
“Seems these VanHeilding guys want you real bad. They’ve sent a few of their agents here to pick you up. So we’re going to deliver you as promised, and then me and the guys are going to retire.” He waved a hand around at the others. “No more of this bullshit ducking and diving.”
He turned to one of the crew. “Becker, go check out the area outside. Make sure it’s all nice and quiet.” He gestured with a jerk of his head toward the airlock. Then he turned to the other crew member. “Dillon, go find that drone and destroy it. Can’t be too many places it can hide on this ship.”
The two crew closed their helmet visors and floated out of the flight deck. The new captain returned to studying the ship’s flight console. Luca and Steph exchanged glances. With the captain distracted and the two crew occupied with their respective tasks, Luca tested the harness that secured her to the seat. Her efforts were hampered by her constant checking of the captain’s focus. He would shift in his seat, halting her efforts, only to resume his study of the navigation screen.
She finally wriggled her hands free, reached up to the back of her head, and activated the neural lace. As her mind began to make the connection, she shoved her hands back under the harness and focused on the drone.
“Where are you?”
A ship schematic blossomed into view in her mind’s eye, highlighting Fly’s location, deep within the network of ventilation ducts.
“One of them is looking for you, Fly.”
“Yes, I have sensed him moving around, shining lights into ducts and alcoves. His efforts are futile, he will not find me.”
“VanHeilding agents are coming, we don’t have much time. We need to do something.”
“I fear my options are limited. I could try and cut you free, but I might not have sufficient time before I’m spotted. However, I could disable the ship and prevent it from operating.”
“We’re leaving the ship, so that’s no use, unless you could disable the airlock door.”
“That might be possible. But it would only buy a little time as there is a manual override that…”
Luca lost the connection, as her mind was snapped back to the here and now by the captain’s sudden movement. He was talking into his comms unit. “Listen up, guys. The VanHeilding people are on their way, they’ll be here in a few minutes. Let’s get these ladies unpacked and brought outside. We can do the handover there.”
Luca struggled to reconnect with the drone, but her mind refused to disengage from the current threat. It was on hyper-alert and singularly focused on the moment.
The other two crew floated onto the flight deck at almost at the same time. The captain waved a hand at Luca and Steph. “Get them out of the seats. We’ll take them outside. Come on, let’s get this done.”
They undid the seat harnesses and pulled them both out of their seats, and began to push them out of the flight deck.
It was difficult for Luca to get orientated in the zero-gee environment with her hands and feet tied. She did manage to catch a look from Steph. One that said, If you’re going to do something with that drone, now would be a good time.
The airlock cycled through its normal opening procedure, meaning that Fly had failed to disable it. It was her last hope; now there would be nothing between Luca and the agents that had come for her.
17
AGENTS
The airlock opened onto a short docking tunnel. Luca and Steph were pushed out and nudged forward. The tunnel quickly transitioned into a broader corridor and finally out into a wide warehousing area. It was dimly lit, and grubby with age and disuse.
Two agents were there to meet them, clad in clean, sharp urban attire complete with mag-boots that enabled them to secure themselves to most metal surfaces. Their look was a far cry from the grubbiness of the smugglers’ EVA suits. And judging by the augmented reality headsets and the sophisticated weapons clipped to their waistbands, these were not people to be messed with.
“Vance, I presume?” one of them called out.
“Yes, that’s me.” The captain floated forward. “We have what you came for.” He jerked his head at Luca.
“Good. Bring her over, we’ll take it from here.”
“Whoa, buddy, hold on there a moment. There’s a small matter of payment.”
The two agents looked at one another for a brief moment, as if silently discussing this issue. Finally, the black-haired dude spoke. “Your contract was to bring her to the lunar rendezvous coordinates. Payment was dependent on this being executed. Since you failed in your mission, the contract is null and void.”
The atmosphere in the warehouse suddenly changed, as if it was experiencing a sudden decompression.
Vance raised an arm in front of Luca and slowly turned to the other crew. “Let’s move the merchandise back out of the way for a moment while we discuss this.”
Luca felt herself being pushed way back down into the connecting tunnel along with Steph. She tumbled a little before grabbing some cables that were floating out from the side wall. As she did, she managed to snag Steph with her feet. The doctor pulled herself along Luca’s legs and grabbed onto the cables.
“Stay there, and don’t even think of moving.” One of the crew had followed them back and took up a position off to one side, a little forward of them.
Ahead, Luca could see a lot of hand-waving and macho posturing by both groups. She couldn’t hear much, but she didn’t need to make out the words being exchanged to figure out that neither side was giving ground. It could be an opportunity, if only there wasn’t a crew member right in front of them.
“Where’s that drone?” Steph whispered. “Things could get messy here and give us an opportunity, maybe to sneak back onto the ship.”
